When property developer Paddy Kelly went bust in 2009, he had debts of more than €350 million. The amount owed by his wife, Maureen Kelly, to the landlord of the couple’s house on Morehampton Road in Dublin 4 is not quite as daunting but it’s still a record amount ordered to be paid by the Residential Tenancies Board.
In November in the High Court, Mr Justice Conleth Bradley dismissed Maureen Kelly’s appeal against a 2023 order of the RTB that the couple vacate the handsome redbrick home and pay landlord Miracove Holdings €60,000 in rent arrears, the maximum it can award, but increased it by a daily rate of €136.99 backdated to October 27th, 2023.
Given the passage of time, the company is now owed more than €122,000 by the Kellys, who will also have to pay the legal costs of the RTB, having lost their appeal. The couple, who last paid rent in July 2021, are now facing enforcement proceedings in the District Court, with a hearing scheduled for April. Miracove Holdings is seeking to enforce the RTB judgment and have a sheriff appointed to remove them from the property.
It won’t be Paddy Kelly’s first-run in with the sheriff. In 2010, his 7-series BMW was seized over a €6 million debt to Dutch-owned ACCBank. Kelly had claimed that Maureen owned the car but the sheriff confiscated it after finding an interview with the developer in the International Herald Tribune six years previously that spoke about the “leather and wood-trimmed interior” of “his” $67,000 car. “What does it matter?” Kelly said at the time about losing his Beemer. “They can have it. I love walking.”
Marty Morrissey gets an A+ in new football rules, even if some pundits aren’t yet sold
Breda O’Brien: Nicole Kidman’s Babygirl isn’t the ‘hottest film this year’. It might be among the most depressing
High noon for developer Paddy Kelly, who faces run-in with the sheriff over unpaid rent arrears
Pat Leahy: Angry Dáil scenes were partly the result of Sinn Féin’s determination to be a more aggressive Opposition
Imma cafe operator departs over contract changes
In 2022, the National Gallery of Ireland came in for strong criticism when it awarded its cafe contract to Aramark, a US multinational that provides catering facilities to a number of direct provision centres. At the time the gallery said its hands were tied by procurement rules, meaning it had to award the €7.5 million tender to the US company as it had scored highest in all of the assessment criteria.
Could the catering contract at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Imma) in Dublin’s Kilmainham go in a similar direction? The much-loved Camerino bakery, which has operated Imma’s cafe and has a coffee truck on the grounds, has decided not to tender for a new contract. Caryna Camerino, its owner, posted on Instagram that it would be handing back the licence when it expires on April 8th because “the terms of the new contract differ significantly from the deal I signed when I agreed to come to Imma in 2023 and are simply not workable for us”.
Among the new requirements are that the cafe's kitchen will be for finishing food, rather than cooking from scratch, that menu prices must be fixed for a year and that calorie counts must be included with everything, even coffee.
Imma said in response to queries that “the new contract is not substantially different from the existing contract”.
Breifne O’Brien goes from Ponzi to putting green
Ponzi schemer Breifne O’Brien has kept a low profile since being released from jail in 2018 having served about half of his seven-year sentence for a multimillion fraud. The Celtic Tiger’s answer to Bernie Madoff, who conned friends and business associates out of more than €10 million in the 2000s, turned up before Christmas at a Tourism Ireland event in Dubai.
O’Brien, who now works as a business development manager for GreenGolfBall, a golf tourism business seeking to tempt overseas golfers to Ireland, was with an Irish tourism delegation at the DP World Tour Championship at the Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai. Photographs from the event show O’Brien alongside Tourism Ireland officials dressed down in a polo shirt and slacks – a long way from the sharp suits once sported by the dapper socialite in his pomp.
The ethics of Dublin shop shutters
In 2019 the Disney Store on Grafton Street in Dublin was accused by homeless campaigners of “lacking compassion” when it applied for permission from Dublin City Council to erect a retractable shutter at its entrance to prevent rough sleepers spending the night in its recessed doorway. Following a protracted planning process, the shop was granted permission for the shutters.
The latest Dublin shop seeking to erect retractable “security shutters” in its recessed doorway is Patagonia on Exchequer Street, which sells clothes designed for surviving in the wilderness to urban hipsters. Last week it asked the council to exempt its plans for metal gates from planning permission “for the purpose of security”. Asked why it felt it necessary to block its doorway, the company, which prides itself on its ethical activism, said it was prompted by a robbery last year and wasn’t a response to rough sleepers.
US group butters up Dublin ahead of potential giant music venue
Does Dublin have room for another large music venue? The Oak View Group, founded in 2015 by music mogul Irving Azoff and Tim Leiweke, seems to think so. The US company, one of the biggest sports and music venue developers in the world, recently completed Co-Op Live in Manchester, the largest indoor area in Europe with a capacity of 23,500. It’s now planning another venue in west London to rival the O2 in east London.
Late last year it hired Q4PR as it launched a charm offensive in Dublin, with executives meeting then minister for finance Jack Chambers, as well as Jim O’Callaghan, Dublin City Council’s Richard Shakespeare and AnnMarie Farrell, chief executive of Fingal County Council, according to filings on the lobbying register.
The company, which also builds sports venues such as the 92,100-capacity Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas, is on the search for locations for new arenas across the world, and Dublin seems to have made the cut, with early plans for a venue that would be more than double the size of the 3Arena.
“Oak View Group is continuously exploring options for performance arenas throughout the world. As one of the world’s great music cities, Dublin would be part of that consideration,” it said in response to queries.
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Find The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Our In The News podcast is now published daily – Find the latest episode here
